Run Walk Enjoy E-Book

Peter Wurzer

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 57

Beschreibung

Endurance sports, slow jogging or brisk walking in particular, are of great physical and mental benefit for the people who are engaged in them. By now, this is well known and widely recognized. What has not yet become so obvious is the fact that many who give up their sedative lifestyle and dedicate themselves to running, walking or working out in general, make mistakes because they want to achieve too much too soon. This booklet takes up this topic and is a guide as to how to avoid the aforementioned errors and how to master the transition to an active healthy lifestyle. This booklet is based on hands-on experience, so readers can truly benefit from it.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

The Reasons Why I Wrote This Booklet

Turning Point

–

How I Became A Runner

The First Step Is Always The Hardest

The Initial Woes and Injuries

Workout Alternatives

Cycling

Kick Biking or Scooter Driving

Aqua Jogging

Stepper Bike and Elliptigo

Fitness Studio and Treadmill

Race Walking and Powerwalking

Race Walking Techniques

Power Walking Techniques

More serious Injuries

Why Exactly Running or Walking and Not Anotheris Sport?

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I stretch before running/walking?

At which pulse rate should I exercise?

How often and how long should one train / run per week?

Which shoes should I use for running or walking?

5K Training

10K Training

Half Marathon

The Marathon

A Word about Training Plans

A Short Note about Diets

In a Nutshell

A Short Epilogue

Appendix: example of a 12-week training plan for running the marathon in around 3 hours

A Word of Thanks

The Reasons Why I Wrote This Booklet

By now, virtually everyone knows the famous Czech long-distance runner Emil Zatopek, who coined the phrase “Birds fly, fish swim, men run”. Equally well-known are the stunningly positive effects of a sportive lifestyle on the mental and physical health of human beings. As I see it, there is no need discussing this all over again. The reason why I have written this book and why I recommend reading it is another one: the average human being of today is one who spends most of their lifetime sitting – in the car, at the office, in front of the television screen. It can be claimed that many people have become estranged from physical work and exercise. Most so-called diseases of civilization can be attributed to a lack of exercise, a lack of movement. This fact, too, is no longer disputed so that it is not necessary to further promote this topic.

However, what is still commonly unknown is that a lot of people who have come to the conclusion that they must change their lifestyles tend to make mistakes during the transition period. Quite often they want to achieve too much in too short a time, which leads to all kinds of injuries. This, in turn, leads to frustration and not infrequently to giving up the newly set goals.

With this book I aim to help avoiding mistakes in the conversion to a sportive and healthy lifestyle.

Unfortunately, I had no such advice at hand when I became a runner myself. I had to learn by trial and error and only God knows how many times I did the wrong thing and ended up sidelined by injury. Dear reader, I am positive that you can learn a lot from my mistakes and from my advice so that you will manage the transition to a runner, jogger or walker free of pain.

I will describe in narrative form what I did right and what I did wrong. I want to motivate you to carry on and harvest all the fantastic and enriching experiences of becoming a runner/walker. This is certainly also of interest for those who want to take part in running or walking competitions.

Moreover, I will provide advice and tips for a targeted performance training because, in my experience, competition - to put it graphically - is the salt in the soup of training.

If you insert a competitive run/walk every now and then, you will most certainly derive pleasure and motivation from it. Competitions, races are concrete, palpable, experiential targets and thus a great help to stick to the new lifestyle.

In a competition you do not only get to know your own body better but you will also meet other runners, sportsmen and -women, there will be an exchange of ideas, experiences and stories, which sometimes results in a life-long friendship.

What enables me to help you to successfully switch to a healthy, active lifestyle, is my personal background of a runner - I have been running and walking for more than 40 years now - and my pedagogical background as a teacher, college principal and running club manager. I myself started running systematically when I was 29 years old - too late to become a world-class runner, but that was not what I was reaching for anyway.

I have won numerous regional championships in long-distance running, from the 5 K to the marathon. The 5K I ran in 15 minutes and a few seconds, the half marathon in 1:09 hrs and the full marathon in 2:26 hrs.

In order to provide others with helpful advice and tips, it is not necessary to have been a world class runner or rather sportsman yourself. Many of the best coaches in basketball, soccer and other sports were only mediocre considering their athletic performance.

Undoubtedly, there is a difference between being a peak performer in a certain field and the ability to teach others to become top providers.

Now that I have become a veteran runner, the proportion of walking outweighs that of running in my personal training. The borderlines between walking, powerwalking, ‘wogging’, jogging and running are somehow fluent and, in my booklet, I tend to use the concepts of running and walking synonymously. I often use them both, divided by a slash to show how close they are to each other.

Turning Point – How I Became A Runner

Over and over again it happens that one comes to a crossroads in life.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

…

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The first two and the last three verse lines of Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road not Taken epitomize such a situation.

I personally experienced such a crucial moment when I was 29 years old. That was back in 1980, the year of the Moscow Olympic Games. At that time, I was in Southern Germany and not far from the town where I lived, the German championships in the marathon took place. Waldkraiburg was the name of the small town that staged the event. As I had nothing better to do, I went